Limiting Sea Launched Cruise Missiles

This paper examines the political and technical verification issues associated with proposals to place quantitative and/or qualitative limits on the deployment of nuclear armed sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs). Overviews of the arms control relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, the development of the SLCM, and Soviet and American concepts of verification are presented. The views of the American arms control and defense communities regarding the SLCM is discussed in depth, accompanied by a detailed examination of the various methods which have been proposed to verify a SLCM limitation agreement. The conclusion is that there are no technological barriers, per se, to SLCM verification, but as the decision on an agreement's verifiability is a political one, the U.S. Navy should concentrate its arguments against SLCM limitations on the weapon's operational utility rather than argue that such an agreement is unverifiable. Keywords: Theses. (FR).

This is the most up-to-the minute survey of the vital subject of sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs) to appear in ten years. It systematically analyzes the technological promises and weaknesses of SLCMs, especially conventionally armed, land-attack versions, explaining sophisticated technologies in language accessible to the general reader. Eric H. Arnett presents a cogent assessment of the crux of the SLCM issue for U.S. security, examining the coastal nation concept of the U.S. defensive position and investigating whether technology can adequately compensate for geography as Tomahawks and their Soviet counterparts give way to more advanced progeny. Arnett weighs the trade-offs in a frank discussion of the technologies and missions envisioned for current and future SLCMs. This well-researched, authoritative study evaluates both U.S. and Soviet SLCM arsenals, examines the role of arms control and unilateral initiatives in managing the dangers of SLCMs, and critically assesses the claims made for the Tomahawk conventionally armed cruise missile. The relevance of a changing international scene and domestic fiscal chaos to SLCM issues is fully appraised. The book's eight chapters lead the reader through all aspects of this complex field with admirable lucidity. Early chapters describe missions envisioned for U.S. conventionally armed SLCMs, and assess actual SLCM technology. Chapter 4 addresses the reciprocal problem of Soviet SLCMs, describing possible and likely roles of Soviet nuclear and conventionally armed SLCMs and the importance of offering responses. The increasingly important question of how SLCMs might be used in the developing world, both by and against U.S. forces and security partners is considered in Chapter 5--an especially relevant discussion in light of the apparent success of the Tomahawk SLCM in the 1991 war with Iraq. The next two chapters describe SLCM arms control as it has been practiced and discuss, from two vantage points, the roles of future arms-control and unilateral disarmament initiatives in addressing the disadvantages of SLCMs. Finally, the immediate implications of the previous chapters for policy practitioners are developed in a chapter that focuses on specific policy recommendations. This timely contribution is a reliable source of information on SLCMs for the interested public, the non-government arms control community, naval personnel, and members of both Congress and the administration.

The treatment of long-range, land-attack, sea-launched, and air-launched cruise missiles has been and will continue to be a major stumbling block in negotiations aimed at controlling strategic nuclear weapons. The existence of both conventional and nuclear variants is a frequently mentioned reason, since it is impossible to distinguish the two types except by close inspection. However, a more fundamental problem is that cruise missiles are carried by platforms--ships, submarines, and bombers--that have many important roles, mostly unrelated to nuclear capabilities, that are the subject of strategic nuclear arms control. This report examines options for controlling both air- and sea-launched cruise missiles within strategic arms control treaties. It assesses these options by the extent to which they provide easily verifiable limits on nuclear cruise missiles, allow substantial deployments of conventional cruise missiles, and avoid operational restrictions on conventional military forces.

Much of this book addresses the U.S. Navy's Regulus missile program--the world's first submarine weapon for attacking an enemy homeland with a nuclear warhead--and the similar Soviet Navy's cruise missile efforts.

Brochure giving a brief description of cruise missiles, their construction and capabilities; a history of their development; an examination of existing arms control agreements relating to cruise missiles; and verification measures by type.

Lederen af det amerikanske Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis (IFPA) og en forsker ved samme institut analyserer de mulige anvendelser af amerikanske cruise-missiler og disses indflydelse på styrkeforholdet til USSR.